The invention relates to a blade assembly which may be used in a food blender that is capable of pulverizing or crushing ice.
A common electrical kitchen appliance is a food blender which reduces the particle size of fresh fruit and vegetables by cutting, blending, chopping, shredding, pulverizing, etc. Most household food blenders also may be used to crush ice in those situations where the presence of large ice particles is not critical. Heavy duty commercial are available for forming small, snow like particles from ice. The snow-like ice particles are commonly used in the preparation of alcoholic cocktails, e.g., xe2x80x9cfrozenxe2x80x9d margarita, xe2x80x9cfrozenxe2x80x9d daiquiri, etc. and non-alcoholic xe2x80x9cslushyxe2x80x9d fruit drinks.
An object of this invention is to provide a blender blade assembly useful in food blenders and constructed to be particularly effective for crushing ice in which the crushed ice is in the form of fine snow-like particles free of chips or pieces.
In accordance with the invention, the blade assembly includes two symmetrical blades, namely, a first, lower blade and a second, upper blade. Both blades have a horizontal, flat or planar center section and curved blade sections at each end of the center section. The center sections of the blades are stacked one on top of the other and are essentially coextensive with one another. The blades extend in the same longitudinal direction so that the upper blade sections are above the lower blade sections. The blade sections are curved such that ingredients in the path of the blade assembly as it rotates are forced by the upper blade toward the lower blade and also forced by the lower blade toward the upper blade. This causes a funneling of the ingredients and is believed essential to producing snow-like particles from ice in an efficient manner.
The funneling of the ingredients such as ice can create a tendency for the ingredients to form a swirling mass which rotates with the blade assembly and seriously detracts from the efficiency of the blade assembly. This tendency is overcome in accordance with this invention by forming the blades sections of the upper blade such that they extend at an angle of between about 60xc2x0 and 80xc2x0, and preferably at an angle of about 65xc2x0 to 75xc2x0 from horizontal and relative to the lower blade sections. Such construction partly retains the funneling action described above and also avoids the formation of a mass of ingredients that rotate with the blade assembly.